This
is one of what I call Dickinson’s wisdom poems. It is also a poem that takes a bit of reconstruction and quite
a bit of imagination to work through. Helen Vendler noted that “Dickinson sits
in a transparent house with no visible door, enjoying the self-selected
sympathizers who can slip inside the glass” (Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries). I don’t think that’s true
for all her poems but it certainly is true of this one. The first task is to define
and fill in some words.

Circle circumscribing a polygon

The
first stanza sets out the problem, its solution, and the need for solution. “Bound
a Trouble” is the same as circumscribing “Woe” : you are drawing a boundary
around it, so to speak, as if indicating that the woe goes this far but no
farther (imagine drawing a circle around a polygon). To circumscribe woe is to
make it endurable . Imagine having a throbbing toothache. If you can circumscribe the pain (it
is only in one part of my jaw and an
antibiotic will make the pain go away in a couple of days) then you can endure
the pain quite easily, if not happily. On the other hand, if you had no idea of
how long it would go on, you might get frantic. The same is true of emotional
pain, which is no doubt what Dickinson is talking about here. If you “Bound” it
by reminding yourself that it only hurts at night, or when walking in the
garden; or that a year from now the sharp ache will be diminished, then you
will still be able to anticipate life beyond the Bound, despite the woe.
Without knowing the limits of the specific woe or “Misery,” who would be “sufficient”
or equal to handling it?

Man circumscribed
(da Vinci)

The
second stanza personifies Misery as a “Workman.” But, Dickinson implies, first
it must be stated to “the Ages” – even if only “to a cipher.” –“Cipher” is an
old-fashioned word for a zero, a nonentity or nobody. Just the stating of a
Misery or woe is in itself a bounding of it. Writing a poem about a misery,
whether the poem is read by posterity or stays forever on a blank page, is an
act of circumscription. It embodies the misery, gives it a job. Misery’s sole
job is pain and it will sing at it as a “Workman” sings at his work to help the
time pass. The workman notes the passing hours of the day, waiting for quitting
time. Misery counts its time in days, making a notch for each day – or the
setting of the evening sun – until its limited time is over.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Poem F 1038

Great Nature not to disappointAwaiting Her that Day —To be a Flower, is profoundResponsibility —

The Dickinson Blog Project

I plan to read and comment on all of Emily Dickinson's 1789 poems in chronological order. Scroll down to see earlier poems, or else browse the Archives. You can also use the Search function (below the Header). I think this is going to be a wonderful adventure!

I'm using R.W. Franklin's Reading Edition of the collected poems. I title the poems by the first line and at the end of the poem identify its Franklin number (e.g., F220) followed by the date Franklin assigns, and then by the numbers assigned by Thomas H. Johnson.